by Jake Logan
The woman put down her head and urged her horse on to greater speed.
“Missy, it’s me, Slocum. Wait!” Either she didn’t hear or she didn’t believe him. He rode after her until his horse tired fast and he found himself walking along, picking his way through grassy stretches until he finally found a road. Getting his bearings, he went to Clabber Crossing and then on to Severigne’s. Missy had beaten him there by quite a stretch.
As he rode up, he saw Missy and Hans Lehrer lighted in the parlor. They argued, but he couldn’t hear the words. He tethered his horse and went in the front door, almost colliding with Severigne.
“Where have you gone? She has gone insane. Crazy. She had taken the loco weed! Smoked it. Eaten it!”
Slocum heard Missy and Lehrer and knew right away what the fight was over.
“Why not, sweetheart? I love you. I don’t give two hoots and a holler if you worked in every cathouse between here and the Mississippi.”
“You don’t want me. You just think you do. I’m not marryin’ you, Hans Lehrer. Not in a million years.”
Slocum almost called out asking what Molinari had shown her, but that wouldn’t do any of them any good.
“If you were a bloody-handed murderer, I’d still love you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t. Get out of here. I’m not marrying you and that’s all I got to say!”
Missy pushed past the rancher, looked stricken at Severigne and Slocum, then ran up the stairs, crying.
“Come back here, Missy. I want some answers!”
Slocum stopped Lehrer as he tried to follow Missy up the stairs.
“Let her simmer down,” Slocum suggested. Lehrer reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wad of greenbacks large enough to choke a cow.
“I’m buyin’ time with her.”
“No, no,” Severigne said, shaking her head. She stared hard at the money. Slocum knew how difficult it was for the madam to turn down this much folding money, but she did. “She is distraught. You will come back another time.”
“I’m marrying her. Mark my words, I am!” With that, Lehrer stormed from the house, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the knickknacks on the table across the room.
“What has happened? Where did she go?”
Slocum didn’t feel like answering Severigne because he didn’t have any idea what had happened when Missy had met Molinari. But he was going to find out.
16
“You stand there and draw,” Randall Bray said, squinting because he had foolishly come out into Main Street, facing the rising sun as he called out Slocum. His face was all thunderclouds, and lightning shot from his eyes. Shoulders tensed and rocked forward on the balls of his feet, he looked unbalanced enough to simply push over, but Slocum took the threat seriously. Slocum saw that his hand also trembled as it poised above the six-shooter at his hip.
“You clean your gun this time?” Slocum asked. All around, men and women ducked inside, wanting to get out of the line of fire if a gunfight started. Slocum noticed that nobody went to fetch the marshal. Good. He could take care of this himself.
“You’re not gonna weasel out of this. I’m calling you out!”
Slocum stared at the young man, then asked, “Why are you so eager to die?”
“You’ve been blackmailing my ma. I’m not going to let you do that.”
Slocum thought he was past being surprised at anything. He was wrong.
“What makes you think I’m blackmailing her?”
“You’ve been nosing around town, asking questions, and you been talking to her. That upsets her every time. This is where it stops.”
“You’ve been doing some digging around town yourself?”
“I found out enough. Draw, Slocum, draw, or I’ll cut you down where you stand.” Bray’s hand shook and moved closer to his pistol.
“All right,” Slocum said. His hand was steady and he knew his aim was good, but he didn’t want to kill Bray. The young man had followed a trail and found the wrong game at the end. “But I’m not the one you want to call out. I’m working for your pa.”
That broke Bray’s concentration. For a moment he looked too flustered to do anything. Frozen as he was, he presented the perfect target for Slocum. Two quick steps brought Slocum within range. He swung a haymaker with his left fist and connected with the young man’s head, knocking him to the ground. Before he could recover, Slocum snatched the pistol from his holster. Bray lay on the ground stunned. As the shock wore off, it was replaced with towering anger. Slocum knew this couldn’t be allowed to stand.
“On your feet. Come on.” He grabbed Bray’s collar and shoved him along.
“Where you taking me? Not man enough to shoot an unarmed man in front of the whole damned town?”
Slocum didn’t bother looking around. He knew people peered out from behind curtains and partly opened doors. They were too smart to come out to watch a gunfight, but they were still intent on the outcome. Slocum shoved Bray along until they came to the bank.
“Inside. Now.”
“What are you going to do? Kill my pa, too?”
Slocum kicked the door open with his boot and shoved Bray inside, sending him sprawling. From behind the low wood rail, Martin Bray shot to his feet at his desk.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“You talk to your boy and knock some sense into his head, if you have to. You tell him what I’ve been doing for you.” Slocum tossed Randall Bray’s six-gun to his father, who clumsily caught it. “The next time I’ll leave him dead in the middle of Main Street.”
Slocum left, not bothering to close the door behind him. The tellers were deathly silent as Martin Bray exploded with invective aimed at his son. From what he heard going on inside the bank lobby, Slocum thought Randall Bray was not going to be a fly in the ointment anymore. If he had to, Slocum would tell the bank president where the embezzled money had gone, but he wanted to avoid that for now. Philomena was no prize, but Slocum saw no reason to destroy her marriage or standing in the community when Andrew Molinari was responsible.
He hurried along the boardwalk but slowed when he saw Molinari’s two gunmen across the street watching him. His dander was still up, and taking them on here and now suited him just fine. He stepped out into the street, the sun warm at his back.
The two men disappeared as if they were nothing more than smoke. Slocum wasn’t sure if he was disappointed. They knew him and had tried to kill him a couple of times. A third time would end with bodies waiting for burial out on Primrose Hill—and Slocum was sure his would not be one of the corpses.
Turning, he went on to Sara Beth’s restaurant. The breakfast customers had left and the noontime diners had yet to show up.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Slocum?” Her smile was brighter than the sun outside.
“Coffee.”
“That’s all? I can offer items not on the menu. To stimulate your appetites.”
“Randall Bray tried to get me in a gunfight.”
“You kill him?” Sara Beth’s smile ran away. “No,” she said, “you didn’t. But if you didn’t kill him—and I didn’t hear any gunshots—that means he’s still mad at you.”
“He thinks I’m blackmailing his ma.” Slocum went on to spell out everything he knew about Molinari and his photography. “He’s making good money off Philomena, but she’s not the only one. Severigne’s girl Missy wants to marry a rancher.”
“Hans Lehrer,” she said. “News gets around fast in a small town. So this all goes back to photographs Molinari took in Kansas City?”
“He’s moved around a lot. He told me he sold pictures of naked women to soldiers during the war. He might still be in that trade. There’s no telling how many women he’s photographed during his career or where.”
“Anna?”
Slocum said, “I don’t have proof, and she might just have been a coincidence, but I don’t think so. One of Molinari’s henchmen killed her and tried t
o make it look like suicide. I heard his confession, but it would be my word against his in court.”
“Emily did kill herself,” Sara Beth said, still chewing on that. “But Molinari is responsible.”
Slocum held down his anger because he was certain Emily had tried to frame him for her suicide, to make it look like murder, just because he was new in town.
At the black heart of it all stood Molinari with his photographs.
“We need to flush Molinari out,” Slocum said.
“Then shoot him out of the air just like you would a quail,” Sara Beth finished. “It’s only fitting.”
“The best way is to work with Missy and her beau,” Slocum said. “If Molinari fails with her, maybe everything will come unraveled.”
“You are going to have to kill him. Marshal Dunbar isn’t likely to arrest him. And one mistake will mean Molinari can show everyone in Wyoming his photographs. How many women would be ruined? How many lives?”
Slocum had to agree.
“Go to Missy and get her to come here,” Slocum said. “I’ll see if Lehrer can be convinced to talk with her and get this matter straightened out. This is all we can do unless I can lay my hands on the photographic plates.”
“Go in with guns blazing, John. Kill him, take them and . . . and smash them!” Sara Beth was flushed from her passion, but Slocum knew it could never be that simple. If he did as she suggested, not even Clabber and Severigne could get him out of jail before he swung from the gallows.
With the power shifting in town, even if Philomena urged her husband to help get him free, Slocum wasn’t likely to escape the law. Justice would have nothing to do with it. Dunbar’s obvious dislike of him would drive the matter until Slocum got his neck stretched.
“Go get Missy,” he said. Sara Beth gave him a quick kiss, but he was distracted, already thinking about how to get Lehrer there.
That proved easier than he’d expected. Simply telling the rancher Missy wanted to talk with him was more than enough to get him back to the restaurant. But when Missy saw him walk in, she shot to her feet and started to run out through the kitchen. If Sara Beth hadn’t blocked her way, she would have vanished.
“What’s going on?” Lehrer demanded. “I thought you said she wanted to see me. That doesn’t look like a woman who wants to meet up with her betrothed.”
“We’re not gettin’ married, Hans. I’m callin’ it off. If I didn’t make myself clear last night, I am now. Leave me alone.” Missy broke into tears.
“You want to tell him about last night and who you met?” Slocum asked.
Missy turned whiter than a bleached muslin sheet. She shook her head and then recovered her wits. She grabbed Slocum by the arm and dragged him to the corner of the dining room.
“You know everything?”
“I saw Molinari try to blackmail you. Looks like he’s succeeding, too. There can’t be anything in that picture he showed you that Lehrer doesn’t know about.”
Missy turned even whiter. Her lips thinned to a razor slash, and she stabbed her index finger into Slocum’s chest so hard he took a step back.
“You listen up good, Slocum. You don’t know anything about that photograph, and I never want Hans to either. Ever.”
“He knows what you do for a living, and he wants to marry you. That tells me he’s a man who knows what he wants and isn’t going to stop till he gets it.”
“Well, he ain’t gettin’ me!” Tears welled in her eyes again. She spun and shouted at Lehrer, “You get on back to your ranch. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
She bolted past Slocum and got outside. He followed her and stopped her.
“Don’t you love Lehrer?”
“With all my heart, and that’s why I ain’t seein’ him hurt. Or seein’ how his love for me would dissolve like a sugar lump in vinegar.”
“Did Molinari tell you not to marry Lehrer?” Slocum had some crazy idea the photographer wanted Missy for himself. That notion died in a flash.
“He ordered me to marry Hans.” Missy broke free and ran off, sobbing as she went. Slocum stared after her, aware of how people up and down Main Street were staring at him. It had been his day to draw unwanted attention to himself. He went back inside, where Sara Beth tried to calm Lehrer. She wasn’t getting too far.
“What got into that woman, Slocum? Severigne said you’d make sure everything went smooth. It’s been just the opposite.”
“If me butting out would help matters, I would,” Slocum said. “There’s someone dealing himself into this game who doesn’t belong.”
“I told him, John. I told him Molinari had pictures.”
“And I don’t care. I saw what that photographer did for Severigne to advertise her whorehouse. They’re right good pictures, and the one of Missy’s fine enough for me to frame and put up—out of the front room, of course. Back where just we could see it. But that’s nothing for her to be ashamed over.”
“I’ll deal with Molinari,” Slocum said. “Don’t you go near him, and watch out for his two hired gunmen. They’re a pair of back shooters, for certain sure.”
“I’m not afraid of the photographer or his hired guns or the Devil himself if it means I can be with Missy.”
Slocum almost told Lehrer that Molinari wanted the marriage to proceed so that he could siphon every cent he could out of the H Bar L Ranch and its owner’s new wife. He held back because he had heard and believed what both Missy and Lehrer said. Whatever was in the photograph was worse than a nude pose.
“You do that, Slocum. Don’t take too long or I’ll tend to this myself.”
“Try and Missy might run where you’ll never find her.”
Lehrer snorted.
“I can track real good. I’ll carry a kerosene lamp through the bowels of hell to find her, if that’s what it takes.” Lehrer stomped out of the restaurant, leaving an uncomfortable silence in his wake.
“What now, John?” Sara Beth finally asked.
“Time to take the bull by the horns.” He touched his six-shooter and then took his hand away, not wanting to give Sara Beth any ideas about what he intended. There might be lead flying, but he wanted to settle this quick. If Molinari died, Marshal Dunbar would never rest until he had somebody locked up in jail for it. The first person he’d come after would be John Slocum.
“I want to come with you.” She clutched his arm. “If what you said about Emily is true, it was Molinari who drove her to such desperation.”
“You’ve got a customer,” Slocum said. As Sara Beth turned toward the hungry cowboy, he was out the back way in a flash. He never slowed as he headed for Molinari’s office. Plans formed and died in seconds. There wasn’t any reason to be subtle about it.
Slocum stopped in front of the office, then drew his six-gun and kicked in the door. The hasp and lock ripped from the wood and the hinges sagged from the impact of his boot. Slocum stepped into the room. The empty room. He ought to have known Molinari wasn’t inside since there had been a lock on the door. He swung around, to be sure Molinari wasn’t hiding behind the curtains and other backdrops he used for his photographs.
The family photos. The ones everyone in town thought were his bread and butter. Using his heel, Slocum kicked shut the door and holstered his pistol. He had a search ahead of him.
He went directly to Molinari’s desk, where he had found the strongbox before, but it was gone. Slocum cursed under his breath, but this was to be expected. The photographer would move his blackmail pictures somewhere harder to find. Ignoring the obvious places, Slocum looked for loose floorboards or secret doors in furniture where a packet of photographs might be hidden.
After fifteen minutes he hadn’t found anything. Molinari could well have taken the box and hidden it elsewhere.
Slocum sat in the man’s chair and looked around. If he were Molinari, he would keep the blackmail photographs somewhere that he could watch. The prospect of Molinari hiding the incriminating pictures outside this office meant Slocum had
no chance at all of ever finding them, short of Molinari taking him to them.
“They must be here. He’s such an arrogant bastard, he’d want them close at hand and not think anybody would find them.”
Slocum slowly scanned the room and couldn’t find a single place in the almost-bare studio where a strongbox could be hidden. That was probably why Molinari had kept it in the knee well of his desk. It was close there, and out of sight.
As Slocum stood to begin a new search, the door to the office opened. All he saw was the rifle barrel and not the gunman behind the weapon.
The muzzle belched orange flame and smoke. The bullet tore past Slocum and dug a hole in the chair where he had been sitting. He drew and fired, but the slug tore into the door rather than the gunman. Diving, Slocum skidded across the room and came to a halt behind a stack of crates. His nose wrinkled at the pungent smell. These were Molinari’s chemicals used in developing the pictures.
The rifleman pushed open the door using the barrel, then figured out where Slocum hid. Using the doorjamb for cover, he began firing as fast as he could lever in a new round.
The lead tore past Slocum and then began hitting the crates in front of him. He waited until seven shots were fired in his direction, then poked up over the top of the crates and began firing. The gunman changed to his handgun, forcing Slocum back.
As the man peeked around the door, Slocum saw it was one of Molinari’s henchmen.
“You come on out and I won’t shoot you down like a mad dog,” the gunman called. Slocum heard him reloading his rifle and knew what his fate would be if he tried to surrender.
But he worried that he might have to. The fumes rising from in front of the pile of crates burned his eyes and made breathing difficult. Too many rifle bullets had ripped into the crates and shattered glass bottles that now dripped out their noxious contents. He coughed and finally pulled up his bandanna to protect his nose and mouth. That helped his breathing but did nothing for his increasingly watery eyes.
Slocum got off a couple more shots as he wondered what to do. His boot soles were starting to sizzle and burn as the liquid from the crates pooled around his feet.